


Place the Call, Feel it Start

by countessrivers



Series: To Sit In Hell With You [3]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Dark Bruce Wayne, Feelings, M/M, Murder, Vigilante Bruce, implications of/allusions to stockholm syndrome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-24 03:15:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18160748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/countessrivers/pseuds/countessrivers
Summary: Bruce and Jim catch up.Dark Bruce AU set about 2 years after the end of Season 4.





	Place the Call, Feel it Start

**Author's Note:**

> I very much haven't forgotten about this AU. The next big part is also in the works, so hopefully it won't be a long of a wait next time (there will be plenty of other fic in the meantime at least - god I have so many WIPs). But I've been feeling ways and emotions about Bruce and Jim and their relationship, so I couldn't write anything else until I got this down.
> 
> Also, this AU was started before Season 5 started airing, so none of that happens in this 'verse. I may work in some things, depending on if I think they fit, but for the most part, this diverges at the end of Season 4.
> 
> Hope you enjoy.

Bruce really has no excuse for not hearing the footsteps until they were practically on top of him. He’s better than that. He _knows_ better than that. He knows to keep one ear on his surroundings at all times. He knows he needs to remain vigilante if he wants to stay alive.

In his defense, he’d been a little busy, slitting the throat of the man who now lay in a crumpled heap at his feet, but again, he should be better than that, and the sound of a gun being cocked behind him should not have come as a surprise. But the night had been one filled with one little annoyance after another, and Bruce had no real reason to think that his streak of bad luck would be ending anytime soon.

“Hands in the air! Now!”

See. Jim Gordon sneaking up on him, catching him quite literally red handed, and pointing a gun at him is something Bruce should have been able to see coming. It was exactly the kind of kick the universe liked to consistently throw at him. Especially today.

 He does raise his hands though, bloody knife and all.

“Put the knife on the ground, slowly, then turn around.”

He follows the order, bending half-way down to drop the knife before straightening up and turning around. Facing Jim allows Bruce a good look at him, and he looks much the same as he had the last time Bruce had seen him. A little less roughed up perhaps, but still as tired, as worn down as he had been then.  From what Bruce has been able to gather, the GCPD has been somewhat run of their feet lately; the war between Cobblepot and Kean has been escalating significantly, Tetch had recently re-emerged, hell-bent on making Jim’s life in particular that much worse, and Bruce and Jeremiah’s actions certainly wouldn't be helping, not to mention the general, every day crime that kept Gotham’s law enforcement busy.

But Jim appears well enough all the same. No obvious gunshot or stab wounds, no cuts or bruises on his face, aside from the perpetual dark circles under his eyes, and he’s not holding himself in a way that suggests any major injuries. He’s certainly well enough to sneak up on Bruce undetected, which, if he’s being immodest, is no mean feat. Seeing him like this, regardless of the gun pointed at his chest, settles something in Bruce that he hadn’t even noticed was there until it wasn’t.

“You can lose the mask too, Bruce.”

That brings Bruce up short, and he must flinch, must show some obvious, physical reaction to the words, because Jim smiles at him. It’s not a real smile, at least, not a smile Bruce has ever seen Jim direct at him. It’s something bitter and sharp and almost mournful.

When Bruce doesn’t move for a long moment, Jim’s face softens.

“Take it off Bruce,” he says quietly. “Please.”

This one isn’t an order, it’s a request, and Bruce doesn’t actually have to do anything, but he feels his arms moving anyway, hands tugging at his mask. He gets it off, and lets it fall to the ground, next to the bloody knife.

He hears the quiet hiss of a sharp intake of breath as Jim looks at his bare face. The ambient lighting of a parking garage in the middle of the night isn’t much better than the flickering emergency lights of a police interrogation room, but it’s apparently enough, because Jim is staring at him, eyes roving over his face. It’s not the look of hunger that he often gets from Jeremiah, but the level of desperation on Jim’s face is familiar enough.

Bruce wonders what Jim sees. He knows his hair is a mess, it always is when he takes the cowl-like mask off, but he wonders how much he’s changed since last Jim saw him. Since Jeremiah took him.

“Jim,” he says, when the silence has stretched on too long to be called comfortable.

It’s Jim’s turn to flinch. He adjusts his grip on the gun, but otherwise does nothing.

“How have you been?” he asks, trying again. He doesn’t like the silence.

That at least gets a raised eyebrow, and a huffed out laugh.

“Been better,” Jim replies. “Also been worse though. You?”

Jim can be funny sometimes. People seem to miss that.

“About the same.” Bruce hesitates for a moment, trying to work out what his head, his stomach, his _heart,_ are doing. “It’s good to see you Jim.”

He settles on that, because it’s true enough; it is good to see him. Bruce’s head hadn’t exactly been in the right place the last time they had interacted, he’d had more significant things to worry about after all, and anything that had gotten between him and Jeremiah had been reduced simply to an obstacle to be overcome, but he feels a bit more level-headed now.

(He tries to make sure he keeps his temper, his emotions in check when he kills. It needs to be done cleanly, dispassionately, a duty to the city that Bruce must carry out because he is the only one that can. He finds that he’s slipping more and more, the rage, the fear, slithering out and taking over. But it’s important that he keeps trying, especially here. He can let himself feel anger, sorrow, disgust at what these people do, he can feel whatever he wants outside of this, but if he lets it become something more in the moment, if he lets it be personal or petty, if it’s no longer about what’s best for Gotham, then he’s no better than the criminals he hunts.

To take a life is nothing small. It needs to be worth something.)

“Last time we saw each other, you kicked me in the head,” Jim says.

Bruce doesn’t really have much to say to that. He did indeed kick Jim in the head. And worse.

“I did.” He feels oddly abashed about it now, though at the time he remembers feeling very little, other than relief, tainted with exasperation, at seeing Jeremiah. It was only after that he started thinking of Jim at all. “I’m sorry.”

And it’s hard not to think back to that night now, even without the reminder. He is once again standing before Jim, hands bloody, facing down the barrel of a gun, only this time there’s no Jeremiah at his back. Only a dead man.

“About kicking me in the head? Killing three of my officers? Or breaking Jeremiah Valeska out?”

“The first one. Second one too.”

“But not the last one.” It’s not a question, so Bruce doesn’t answer.

They stand in silence, neither quite sure what to say. Bruce should have tried disarming Jim by now, tried escaping, and Jim should be taking him in, arresting him. Shooting him even.

Bruce knows Jim won’t kill him. He’s banked on that once before after all. But it’s starting to confuse him, the way Jim hasn’t made a move besides ordering him to put down his weapon. Bruce is a criminal (he knows that, he does) he’s a killer, he’s aided and abetted another killer’s escape from custody twice. He is literally standing over a dead body, and Jim isn’t doing anything, and Bruce can’t understand why.

(The part of Bruce that he keeps on lockdown, that hurts whenever he lets himself think too hard, that never gave in, even when Bruce himself did, tells him it’s because Jim loves him. Jim has always loved him. Has always wanted him safe and happy and healthy.

It tells him that Jim had looked for him. Had never stopped looking for him. Would have never given up on him unless he had lost all hope.

Because why else would Jeremiah have-?)

“How did you know?” he eventually asks.

“That it was you?” Jim responds. “Or that you would be here?”

“Both. Either.”

“It took us a while to start putting the pieces,” Jim shrugs. “Or I guess, the bodies, together. Murders aren’t exactly an anomaly in Gotham, there’s no shortage of dead bodies turning up in alleys and parking lots, but once we knew what to look for, it became obvious. The murder weapon might not have been the same each time, but all the victims were killed in the same way, the same scenario. All of them were the...same kinds of people.”

Jim’s eyes drop down to the body at Bruce’s feet, and Bruce can’t quite read the look on his face, but it’s not anger. Disappointment maybe? Regret? Something else?

“We’ve been chasing down rumours of a vigilante killing Gotham’s worst for months now. No useful witnesses, no substantial descriptions, just whispers. Whoever it was they knew what they were doing. They had training, they had the skills needed to ambush the victims and kill them quickly, neatly even. They were a shadow.”

He looks back up at Bruce.

“After you broke Jeremiah out, after-” Bruce can see Jim’s hand, the hand holding the gun, start to shake. The weapon’s been slowly tilting down as Jim talks. His finger isn’t even on the trigger. “After we found out you were alive, something just clicked into place.”

He smiles that awful, empty smile again.

“I’ve seen you fight before, I've seen the way you move. I know what you’re capable of Bruce, and I...I know why you might-” He cuts himself off. Bruce watches him squeeze his eyes shut as the hand holding the gun drops to his side. “Who else could it have been?” He says the last more to himself than to Bruce.

Jim opens eyes after a moment, and he slides his gun back into his holster.

“Still, a part of me hoped I was wrong.”

“And tonight?” Bruce asks. “How did you know to be here?”

“Honestly? I didn’t. I’ve, _we’ve_ cobbled together a list of probable targets. Watched a few of them, kept an eye out for anything suspicious. Pure luck, I guess, that we both happened to be here tonight.”

Bruce’s life hasn’t exactly been a testament to good fortune, but then, neither has Jim’s, so if Jim’s interruption tonight was simply down to nothing but luck, he’s not sure whose luck it is, or if it should be counted as good luck or bad.

“And what did you hope for, watching them? To catch me? To protect them?”

“I’m a cop. If someone is in danger, if there is a threat to their life, regardless of who it is, it’s my job to step in, to help.” Jim pauses. “And if, in the process of surveilling them, evidence had come to light pointing to possible criminal dealings, then we would have arrested them.”

Bruce can’t help himself. He laughs, and the sound startles Jim, who can’t quite help his instinctual jump. Bruce slaps a hand over his mouth to muffle the sound, conscious of the disturbed look creeping across Jim’s face.

“Sorry, sorry,” he says, once he’s gotten himself back under control. “It’s just, really? You would have arrested them?

“Yes, I would have. If there was evidence of a crime, I would have brought them in.”

“Then what? When has that ever helped Jim? How many times have people like Cobblepot, Nygma, Strange, mobsters like Falcone and Maroni been arrested? How many saw a trial? How many saw the inside of a cell. How many actually served out their sentence? And what about the others that were never brought in? That brazenly, openly broke the law, that killed, that have blood on their hands and were never made to answer for it. Mayor James, Loeb, Tabitha Galavan, the judges and the lawyers who turned away and profited as Penguin’s licensing system gave the city’s worst free reign to hurt others,” Bruce kicks out at the body still sprawled out on the ground. “ _Him_.”

Jim shakes his head.

“You think I don’t know that Bruce? You think I don’t hate that it’s so hard to get anywhere in this city? To make any sort of difference when the corruption is so entrenched? But there needs to be proof, evidence, due process. We can’t, we can’t just go around taking the law into our own hands.”

And maybe it’s wishful thinking, but to Bruce’s ears, Jim doesn’t say that with as much conviction as he might have six, twelve months ago. He says it like it’s something he’s had to repeat to himself over and over. Like it’s something he’s had to convince himself of.

“Then what?” he pushes. “We just let them do as they please? Let them make a mockery of justice, of the innocents they’ve hurt?”

“The system is corrupt, yes, but that doesn’t mean we should just give up.”

“Who’s giving up? The good people in Gotham deserve protection, _that_ is what matters. _That_ is what this is about.”

“Killing people isn’t the solution,” Jim snarls.

“You would know,” Bruce snaps back, his temper flaring momentarily before he can get it under control. He watches as Jim turns in a circle, running his hands through his hair and pulling in frustration, before he visibly deflates. He looks down at his feet as he continues, voice heavy, as if the words themselves were weighted.

“You’re right. I have killed. I know what it’s like to kill in battle, in the line of duty, to save a life.” Jim draws a shaky breath in, and then lets it out. “I also know what it’s like to kill in cold blood.”

Bruce is startled when Jim turns back to look at him and he sees the beginnings of tears in his eyes.

“I know that it’s the worst feeling in the world, and... and I wanted better than that for Gotham. For you.”

Bruce finds himself at a loss at what to say.

“I don’t know what exactly Valeska did to you,” Jim continues, taking a careful step towards him. “I only know what you’ve done now, and it scares me Bruce. It really does. But you’re alive, and there’s a part of me that doesn’t care about anything else except that.”

“Jim-”

“Please, Bruce,” he says, taking another step forward with his hands raised placatingly in front of him, as if he’s worried Bruce is going to lash out. Or run. “Please? I just want to- I, I need to-”

Bruce stays where he is. Let’s Jim come closer, not entirely sure what to expect. He already knows Jim wouldn’t shoot him, even if he hadn’t already put his gun away, and his words belie any sort of arrest attempt, despite the fact that they were almost screaming at each other a moment before, but Bruce can’t quite put a name to the look currently on Jim’s face. It hooks itself somewhere in his chest, and it holds him in place as Jim moves towards him.

Once in arm’s reach, Jim puts a hand on his shoulder and brings the other one up, hesitating for just a moment before bringing it to his face, cupping his cheek.

“You’re alive,” Jim whispers. “And it’s all I’ve been able to think about for months.” The hand on his cheek slides around to the back of his neck and before Bruce can reply, Jim is pulling him into a hug.

Bruce freezes, arms at his side as Jim wraps his own around him.

Bruce remembers how good it used to feel when Jim touched him, when he put a warm, solid hand on his shoulder and squeezed as he looked at him with worry or concern or love. He remembers being young. He remembers being small enough that he’d be burying his face in Jim’s chest whenever he hugged him. Bruce is taller now, taller than Jim in fact, but that same warm, fluttery feeling is flaring up. Jim feels the same, he smells the same, and Bruce can’t help but sink into the embrace, can’t help bringing his arms up to hug Jim back, heedless of the blood on his gloved hands that would no doubt stain Jim’s suit.

Jeremiah’s touches were different, are different, and Bruce honestly can’t remember the last time he was touched with such pure, uncomplicated affection.

It feels sudden when Jim pulls back, but he doesn’t move far, simply brings his hands up to hold Bruce’s face gently.

“I looked for you,” he says. “I looked for months. Even after I got that tape, even when I thought for sure you were dead, I didn’t stop looking. I just wanted to bring you home.” Jim is cracked open, bleeding over them both, and Bruce can barely stand to look at him, so he squeezes his eyes shut. Jim’s words are clawing at something that Bruce doesn’t like to touch, digging up a part of him that needs to stay buried. The same part that worries about Selina, about Alfred, that hopes neither of them ever come back to Gotham. That wants his parents. That wants to go home.

“It kills me that I failed you so badly,” Jim’s hands drift down from his face to rest on his shoulders. “And I will never, ever forgive myself for leaving you in that monster’s hands.”

Bruce’s own hands dart up to clutch at Jim’s wrists. He doesn’t pull his hands away, but he does open his eyes.

“No, he’s not-. He loves me.”

“Bruce, he kidnapped you, drugged you, tortured you, _broke_ -”

“No,” Bruce cuts him off. “ _No_. He loves me.”

(“ _Please. Say it again.”_

 _“I love you.”_ )

Jim just stares at him, looks into his eyes as his hands clench at his shoulders. Eventually he nods.

“Maybe,” he says softly. “Maybe whatever Jeremiah feels for you is the closest thing to caring that he’s capable of any more. Maybe in his head, everything he’s done, everything he’s done to you, makes sense. Maybe he thinks he really does love you.

Jim pulls at the collar of Bruce’ suit to stare at his bare neck, and Bruce knows what he sees.

“But this?” Jim says. “Bruce, this isn’t love.”

Bruce brings his own fingers up to trail along the scar that cuts across his neck, one of only two permanent marks Jeremiah has ever left him with.

He can barely remember it happening. He was drugged, for verisimilitude Jeremiah had said, and the weeks afterwards are still a haze of ache and sedation. But he remembers the knife slicing across his neck, the pain of it, regardless of how deep, or not deep, it was. He remembers the camera. He remembers Jeremiah’s voice.

Bruce shakes his head, staring at Jim as he touches his neck.

“A monstrous love maybe. But love all the same.”

“Bruce...”

“I am _free_ Jim.” He reaches out to clutch at Jim’s arms, fingers wrapping around his forearms. He wants to shake Jim, he wants to make him understand, because he knows he can. “Jeremiah _set me free._ I can see now, who I am. I can see what Gotham really needs.”

Jim scoffs.

“The last thing Gotham needs is Jeremiah Valeska’s personal brand of terror.”

Bruce shakes his head, because it’s like Jim is being deliberately obtuse.

“That’s not what this is, and you know it.”

“What is it then?” Tears still drying on his cheeks, Jim’s face is once again contorting with anger.

“You were right to kill Theo Galavan.”

Jim freezes, practically stops breathing. His face is panicked, horrified, _ashamed_ , and that’s not what Bruce wants at all. Jim tries to pull back, pull out of Bruce’s grip, but Bruce doesn’t let him.

“No, Jim, you were.” He tries to pour every ounce of conviction he has into his words. He needs Jim to believe. “Galavan deserved to die, he _needed_ to die. For what he did to you, to the city. From what he was going to keep doing.”

“And to you,” Jim says faintly.

“What?”

“Some of Galavan’s worst crimes were committed against you.” He’s staring down at where Bruce’s hands are locked around his arms. “He deserved to die...for what he did to you.” He looks back up at Bruce. “I thought about it, while I was-, when I pulled the trigger. I thought about the city, the people he had hurt, Oswald’s mother, even Jerome, and the others who Galavan had used and discarded along the way. But mostly, I thought about you, defenseless, tied to that pole.”

He hadn’t precisely been defenseless. He’d had a plan after all (for all that Silver had fooled him in the beginning, she hadn’t been that hard to manipulate) but the sentiment was appreciated.

“I was going to leave,” Jim says, and there is something in his voice, like the words are coming out almost unconsciously. “Lee told me she was pregnant, and we were going to leave, start our family. I was ready to go, ready to leave Gotham, ready to leave Galavan to Oswald, but then Harvey and Alfred showed up and told me he had you and... there was no way I could go.”

Bruce hadn’t known that. He had taken for granted that Jim and Harvey and Alfred and Selina would all be there. Cobblepot’s presence had admittedly confused him, but he’d quickly brushed it aside, vaguely aware at the time of the man’s own vendetta against Galavan. He hadn’t known Jim had been thinking about leaving.

Bruce lets go of Jim’s arms and instead takes hold of his hands.

“And how did it feel?” he asks gently. “How did it feel to kill him?”

Jim squeezes his eyes shut.

“It felt...it felt r _ight_ , _just,_ like I had done something real, something tangible to make Gotham safer. It felt like I was saving lives, even if it was only for that moment.”

Jim’s hands clench where they hold his, and Bruce can see where flakes of dried blood from his own gloves have rubbed off onto them.

“You have been trying to save Gotham, Jim, for seven, eight years now. You have been giving up your heart, you soul in order to save this city, and it is _killing_ you.”

Jim is suffering, and Bruce finds that the idea is unacceptable to him.

(It’s always been unacceptable, since the night Jim sat down beside him in a cold, dark alley. He can’t believe he’d forgotten that.)

“And for what? Any progress you make is undone the next time another mob war breaks out. The next time Oswald Cobblepot starts bribing city officials. The next time someone pays Victor Zsasz to assassinate someone. The next time someone in a stupid hat makes people jump off a roof.”

“What are you asking me to do here Bruce?”

“Help Gotham. _Save_ Gotham. Let me do what I need to do.”

“By killing people.”

“Only the guilty ones. Only the ones that deserve it.” Bruce leans in closer, staring into Jim’s face. “Gotham can be saved Jim. And it’s ugly and bloody and it’s not easy, it shouldn’t be, but it can be done.”

Jim looks back at him, but he doesn’t pull away.

“Bruce, what happened to Tabitha Galavan?”

Bruce doesn’t answer, because he doesn’t have to. Jim already knows.

“And him?” Jim lets go of his hands and gestures to the corpse that Bruce had very much forgotten about. “What did he do to deserve death?”

Bruce looks down and nudges the dead man’s head to the side.

“He was on the company board, and he liked boys,” he says carefully, eyeing Jim as he watched for a reaction. “Liked them young. Should you wish to check, there will no doubt be more than enough evidence on his computers, and in his home, to prove as such.” There it is, that flash of rage that Jim couldn’t hide quickly enough.

“How did you find out?” he asks.

“You’d be surprised at the things I know. I’m a very good listener. But in this case, his _tastes_ ,” Bruce spits the word. “Were hardly a closely guarded secret, at least among his peers. I’d been working on getting rid of him for a while, but I didn’t have enough control of the board, or enough allies at the time. No substantial evidence then, just whispers and a hunch. And the way my skin crawled whenever I was forced to be in a room with him.”

Jim curses softly under his breath.

“Gotham can’t be saved, Jim, Gotham can’t be _safe_ , as long as people like that are allowed to roam free. As long as people like that are able to kill and torture and steal and hurt without consequence. Tell me you understand. Please Jim, tell me you understand.”

Jim doesn’t look at him, instead stares at the body on the ground, but he reaches out a hand to touch Bruce’s arm.

“You should go.”

“What?”

“I have to call this in. There will be at least half a dozen cops here, so you should go. I assume you’ve done something to take care of the security cameras? We’ve never been able to catch you on one before, even at the precinct.” Bruce nods. “Then go.”

Jim looks at him so sadly, so Bruce touches the hand on his arm, and tells him truthfully.

“I’ve missed you.”

He then steps away from Jim, picks up his mask and knife, and slips out without looking back.

Once out of the parking garage, Bruce makes his way to the roof of a near-by building and crouches down to watch as the flashing lights and sirens of the police cars Jim had called eventually come screaming down the road below.

He’s in no real rush, and no one would be looking for him up here, so he sits on the roof, watching as the police cordon off the area. He stays as they head inside, he stays as the coroner brings the body out, and he stays until he sees Jim climb into his own car and drive off. It might be wishful thinking or pure imagination, but Bruce would swear that Jim had looked up at the roof where Bruce was standing right before he had turned away.

Jim had looked at Bruce with something close to heartbreak, and just picturing his face makes Bruce’s eyes sting, but he takes comfort in the fact that broken hearts can be fixed, they can heal, and Bruce knows he can fix Jim. He can open his eyes, as his have been opened. Jim wants the same thing Bruce does - the safety and preservation of Gotham and her people. It’s a want they have shared for as long as they have known each other. They’ve simply been going about achieving it the wrong way.

And it kills a part of Bruce to see Jim suffering. To see him worn down and hurting, throwing himself against the impenetrable wall that is Gotham’s criminal element, over and over again without making a difference except that he was ever so slowly killing himself.

But Bruce can help him. Bruce can save him.

**Author's Note:**

> Me: loves Bruce and Jim with all my heart, and adores how strong and good they both are, and how Jim struggles with his duty to Gotham and his anger and his stubbornness and his belief in doing the right thing while wanting to make Gotham better, and how they both believe in mercy and and incarceration over death, and how it kills them when they fail in that mission.  
> Also me: writes a Dark Bruce AU where Bruce tries to convince Jim of the benefits of vigilante murder and Jim isn't entirely opposed.  
> *shrugs*
> 
> My [tumblr](http://countessrivers.tumblr.com/) is over here.


End file.
